Art and theater reviews covering Seattle to Olympia, Washington, with other art, literature and personal commentary.
If you want to ask a question about any of the shows reviewed here please email the producing venue (theater or gallery) or email me at alec@alecclayton.com. If you post questions in the comment section the answer might get lost.

Thursday, June 26, 2014

My brief, illustrious theatrical career

My first time on stage was in
the first grade as one of the dwarfs in Snow White. I can’t even remember which
one. All I can remember is that I loved “Whistle While You Work” and Snow White
was the most beautiful girl at Church Street Primary School. All the boys were
jealous of Brett Rogers, who got to play the prince and got to kiss her

For my second time on stage my
identical twin brother and I sang and danced to the song “Sisters” from the
movie White Christmas. Only we
changed it to “Brothers.” Neither of us
could even begin to carry a tune — couldn’t then and still can’t. Nevertheless,
the audience loved it simply because we were so damn cute.

I was also in a few dance
recitals. I can’t remember anything about them, but I was reminded once. I was
interviewing for a job, and the woman who was interviewing me had a daughter
who had been in dance class with me. She told me that I once bit her daughter
on the butt. Yikes! I didn’t get the job.

After that I never again performed
on stage, but I did join the drama club in high school. Why? Because (1) a lot
of my friends were in it and (2) the faculty advisor was a beautiful young
teacher who had not long before been Miss Mississippi. I joined the club to be
close to her.

Ten years late when I was hired
as an art teacher in a little town in Missouri the principal saw the drama club
listed on my application and asked if I could direct the high school play. The
job paid $200. I was about as well qualified to direct a play as I was to
perform surgery, but an extra 200 bucks sounded awfully good, so I accepted the
job.

The play had already been chosen
and paid for. It was an incredibly stupid comedy about boys who dress up as
girls in order to crash a girls’ spend-the-night party. The students were not
stupid. They immediately saw how bad it was and starting riffing on it in
rehearsals, improvising lines that were much better than what was written in
the script. I told them to go for it. Improvise to their hearts’ content. I
didn’t so much direct the play as allow them to do what they wanted to do. It
played one performance only and was a huge hit. The principal and many of the
parents told me it was the best play ever done at that school, and since many
of those parents had six, seven and eight kids who had all gone to the same
school and they had been attending plays there for years, I figured they were
good judges.

That was it for my theatrical
career. Never again did I step foot on or behind stage, but I spent a lot of time
sitting in the audience. And yet, in 2003 The News Tribune offered me the job
as theater critic. I guess they figured if I could write about art and
literature I should be able to write about theater.

Since then I’ve been learning about
theater on the job, and I’m still astounded that people in the business
consider me some kind of authority. Little do they know. Oops! Did I just let
the cat out of the bag?

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About Me

I am an artist and writer. My paintings are shown primarily in galleries in Tacoma and Olympia, Washington. I write an art review column and arts features for the Weekly Volcano, a community theater review column for The (Tacoma) News Tribune and regular arts features for Thurston Talk (Olympia).
My published novels are:Return to Freedom, Reunion at the etside, The Backside of Nowhere, The Wives of Marty Winters, Imprudent Zeal and Until the Dawn. I've also published a book on art, As If Art Matters. All are available on amazon.com and http://www.claytonworkspublishing.com.
I grew up in Tupelo and Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and have been living in the Pacific Northwest since 1988 where I am active in many progressive organizations such as PFLAG (Parents, Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays).